"A pity beyond all telling is hidden in the heart of love" ~ William Butler Yeats.
The arguments all started out same.
"Robin, you are tired -are you sure you will not rest?"
"I can't Starfire, I have to finish-"
"Robin, wouldn't it be better to wait tomorrow?"
"No Star, the lead will go cold by then."
"Robin, will-"
"Starfire no."
And so on, and so on.
...
"Robin, please would you leave it just for tonight?" she was finally reduced to asking. (Begging, if she were being honest.) It hurt her heart to see him like this, alone in this perpetually dark room (would to truly hurt to have some light brought in here?) and his back constantly facing her, as his form remained bent over a dozen individual files; searching for even the faintest lead to Slade.
It hurt her heart dreadfully, until she ached with it. With pity.
Robin was a young man by human standards...a youth, by her people's mindset.
He should be enjoying this time as the prime of his life -for when it was gone, it would never come again. Especially for humans, who sparked to life so very quickly but then burned away, so rapidly (and until she'd meet them, Starfire had never understood the great strength that graced her people in their elder years).
He shouldn't be consumed with fever, over the things he couldn't control. Be it mastery over his "flaws", the crime rate of Jump, or the ever elusive mayhem of their one-eyed nemesis.
She didn't understand it. Even a child on her planet knew that to attempt control and measurement over everything was, at best, setting oneself up for a lifetime of frustration and misery. And at worse...it could cause madness. On her planet, she had seen this too. Seen rulers focus their minds and bodies onto one sole thing with all their willpower, until both cracked under the heat like zorrkaberries.
The thought of Robin following such a path chilled her...especially since the reasons he strained himself so were so good. All he wanted was to help people, to serve them...at least, she thought so.
Sometimes though...sometimes she had the hint that he was trying to prove somthing to someone...though who that was she couln't imagined. She couldn't imagined Robin havn't to prove himself to anyone.
"Robin, we are going to watch a movie," she had said while still outside the door, before she entered his room with the briefest of knocks announcing her, the raven haired boy having long ago decided to trust the warrior girl with the pass-code, due to what was unsaid between them. She tried hard to keep her tone cheerful and inviting -to mask her now potent worry.
It had been three days since Robin disappeared into his study, chasing a new lead with a single-minded purpose that punished himself more that the criminals they chased.
Now, for Robin to vanish from the Titians' sight for a day...this not unknown to them. Or even two days. But three? This was pushing their already strained tolerance.
"It ain't healthy what he's doing!" Cyborg had exclaimed to the rest of them in the kitchen, his concerned masked with frustration. "He doesn't eat, doesn't sleep...At this rate, I'm surprised his body hasn't started shuttin' down!"
"Totally man," Beast Boy had agreed fervently, nodding his green head. Raven said nothing, but from the way she peered at them beneath her hood and crossed her arms, it was clear she agreed. While she herself often needed time to be alone, to mange her power, the empath knew better than most of them that Robin had different needs, and what was good for her was damaging to him.
(Even if he wouldn't admit it.)
"If he doesn't come out today, I'm going to blast down his door tomorrow," Cyborg vowed. And something in the oldest Titan's voice told the others he was serious. This above all else was what prompted Starfire to try her best to entice Robin out, wanting very much to avoid that promised scene.
Frankly she hated Robin's room, loathed it with a passion, and didn't know how he managed to sleep in it; with news-clippings of the team's successes and failures posted to the walls. A bedchamber was suppose to be a safe place for rest and rejuvenation, solely for wellness of your mind and body...but here...it more resembled an echo chamber, throwing a million bad messages back to her friend's stressed brain.
She had always found it to be reminisce of a tomb even. Which was why she tired to constantly to pull him out of it. Robin was sixteen years old. He had no business being in a tomb. They all flirted with death enough as it is, doing what they did on a daily basis.
This perception of hers wasn't helped any when she stepped inside the room...and the first thing she saw was Robin on the floor near his desk, pale and unmoving. And perhaps she merely had an ill-divining soul (Tamaranean's were known to have active imaginations) but this sight sent her hearts into her throat, to the point she couldn't even yelp as she darted to his side. On foot.
There was no way she could fly with such a sight before her. In her brief life, the Tamaranean girl had seen too many love ones lying still and unmoving like this.
"Robin," she called to him tenuously, with one hand grasping his shoulder and her other hand gently touching his head, fingers fanning out to smooth down hair that hadn't been washed in a couple of days. He didn't smell very good...and this did not help with the all tomb imagery.
She tried to keep her voice from trembling as she spoke. With pity. It seemed that Cyborg was not so far off, with his worry of Robin's body shutting down. Why, why, oh why did he insist on do this to himself?
In healthy mind-sets (she refused to consider the possible that Robin's mind was anything but) creatures didn't purposefully damage themselves without some sort of prompter...so what was his?
The chase of Slade?
The...challenge the villain always seemed to pose to him? (Starfire was not blind...she saw plainly enough that their adversary constantly...got-under-the-skin of her friend, though why that was she didn't know...he was always too proud to tell her.)
What?
After a few moments of her ministering, the young hero started to come to his sense again. He sifted on his side, before raising a hand to his head, and sitting... up-right was the word, she believed. Up and right were two earthen words than were often associated with wellness.
She adjusted her position with him, as she still hadn't removed her hand from his shoulder...an instinctive part of her was almost afraid too, fearing that if she did so, he'd disappeared.
"Star?" he asked, and even with his mask on, she could tell he was blinking the unconsciousness from his eyes. "What are you- what time is it?"
"It is eight o'clock in the p.m." she told him somberly as they both stood up. While she keep it's presence light, she still didn't remove her hand from his arm. "...Robin, why were you on the floor?"
He stared at her for a brief moment, his mouth opening before firmly closing, and giving no answer even as his face turned red.
"I-well...I wasn't planning to end up on the floor Star..." he told her at last, his hand going to rub his neck sheepishly. "I got tired a little bit ago, so I decided to lie my head on the desk...and I guess I fell off onto the floor..."
"And that didn't wake you?" she asked him, incredulous. The words were out before she could stop them, and she felt guilty when her friend's flush only deepened. But still, her point stood. Robin's reflexes were notorious, able to react to the slightest change about him. Beast Boy had once attempted to drop a water balloon on him...which had only resulted in the changeling getting drenched.
"Well- it probably did," Robin replied at last, somewhat jauntily. "But I just-"
"Robin," she sighed, suddenly feeling very weary -they had often traveled down this road before...though not to this extend. But nevertheless, the warrior girl could recognize that they were once more at their infamous crossroad. "You need to come away from this for a while..."
And low and behold, what did Robin do but straighten his shoulders, and clench his jaw. Normally she admired his strength...but not when it was breed with pig-headedness. Not when it served nothing except his pride. At the expense of himself.
"I can't Star," he told her, his tone short and almost dismissive (and she would give a great deal to know whether it was herself or merely her advise that he was dismissing). He shook off her hand, and step back to stand apart from her. "I'm so close -"
"And it will be here for you when you get back," she countered him before that familiar sentence was finished...and it was hard to tell who was more surprised -him or her. But since she had started, she would fight for it.
"Robin, wearing one's self to the bone does not serve to improve effectively in battle," Starfire said, starting out firmly. But try as she might, she couldn't keep ether her voice or face that way, and pity soon softened it. "You are wasting your health."
Robin straightened at that, in the way humans do when they were indigent -for some reason, telling obvious truths seemed to always had this effect on them. This one in particular. She found it bewildering and strange...on Tamaran, such concern shown from a friend would be appreciated. Here, it often was not.
"Starfire, I'm not a child," he told her firmly, in a way that she knew he thought she was over stepping some bounds -foolish boy. "I can take care of myself-"
"Then please...do so," she pleaded, while inwardly resisting the urge to pull her hair out. "For us if not yourself. Do you know how long you have been in here?"
"A few hours..."
She nearly choked. "Hours? It has been three days Robin."
That caught his attention. "Days?" He sounded astounded. And she didn't know whether this relived or terrified her.
"Yes Robin...days. We are all worried." She left out that Cyborg wanted to blast down the door.
"Star, I..."
She come forward, and put her fingers to his mouth. "Just this once," she told him softly, the unsaid prompting her other hand to grasp his tightly, refusing to let go. "Please leave it. Please."
He looked at her dead on for a moment, and she looked back, too invested now too look away, like she normally might.
"I got to finish reviewing..." he started to say -tried to say. But when he saw the strained and anxious look playing on his friend's soft features -strained and anxious over him, the teenage hero marveled slightly. What he had ever done to earn such deep loyalty from her he would never know- the words just died on the tip of his tongue; and he couldn't say them, for the life of him he couldn't say them. Not if they were only going to add to the warrior girl's distress.
And it was a very familiar distress -the nervous shuffling, the toe digging into the floor, the earnest look...it was all to familiar.
His stomach twisted.
The arguments had all started out same.
"Bruce, you've been at this for hours...can't you just take a brake?"
"I can't chum, I have to finish-"
"Bruce, come on. Can't it wait till tomorrow?"
"No Dick, the lead will go cold by then."
"Bruce, will-"
"Robin no."
And so on, and so on. It wasn't a comforting revelation by any means. Especially when he remembered that the arugments between him and his mentor had, with time, turned into screaming matches that had rocked the very foundations of the bat cave. And that it had ended with him leaving.
The Teen Wonder couldn't imagined fighting with Starfire, or any of his teammates that way(even Cyborg)...but he cared to much about their bond -unsaid though it was- to want to change that by leaving it to fate. That had a record of not turning out well in his life.
Robin took in a sharp breath of air, before letting it out slowly, gathering himself, and getting his emotions under control -like the Bat had taught him. Then he did what came naturally to him when he and Star were alone together. He offered Star a quick little smile that came deep from his center, and squeezed her hand back firmly -showing her without words that the situation wasn't as bad as she feared -and that he wasn't going anywhere.
"Alright Star," he told her with a lopsided grin. "You win. I'll come out."
An for a moment, he had to bite the corner of his mouth not to chuckled at the gobsmaked look that overcame the Tamaranean's face -a mixture of delight battling sheer disbelief. Not surprisingly, delight won out.
"Oh, wonderful!" the young alien gasped, eyes alit and glowing from within as both her hands took hold of his own. Her happiness brought a indulgent redness to his face, but he couldn't bring himself to feel embarrass for causing his friend such joy. God knew Star deserved to feel it each and everyday of her life.
"Cyborg will be so joyous to know he will not be required to blast down the door!"
That through him for a loop though. "Wait, he was going to-"
"Come!" And without further adieu, she pulled him with all her considerable strength out of his room, and down the hall...though to be honest, he really would have liked to showered first.
Ah well. There were more important things than that...and...there were more important things that files and research too. His team were the first and foremost of them. And though he hated to admit it...he knew he sometimes forgot that.
But so long as he had certain sun-powered alien willing to drag him out, he'd never forget to be apart of their family for long.
This was all apart of what made the unsaid between them so strong.
Reviews make me happy so tell me what you thought and i'll update sooner.
So I'll admit I can be like a Robin a bit sometimes...and I relied on my family to pull me out. And while modern culture doesn't seem t like to admit it, I think pity plays a big part in love...like when you do something, or give up an argument, to relive someone's distress -a lack of which I think damage Bats and Robin's relationship. But makes Robin and Starfire strong.